Time to bury the hatchet

On the village chief's sofa, Victor slowly clasped his face with one hand and groaned. In the middle of opening his eyes after a small nap, he rubbed his sleepy face and muttered. "I still feel like shit…"

Soon, Victor stood up on his ass as he started to rub his eyes. He stretched his back and let out a relieved sigh, at least he wasn't feeling as tired as before, although sleep isn't going to work anymore for now.

Instead of using the crutch, he went to his inventory to see how much money he currently has, which was 38'873 Gold Coins.

Well, he could buy the last Super Upgrader and unlock the next series now… But he feels hesitant about it. It's not like he has a lot of money at the moment, so it is better to wait for later, when he has money to spare.

9'000 Gold Coins would be quite useless after all, so it was better not getting stuck there in the first place.

He spent 6'022 Gold Coins to buy a motorized wheelchair and sat on it, before using the joystick on the right side of his new wheelchair to wheel out of the house. The surrounding village didn't seem any different from a normal one if you didn't take in account the clear lack of men.

Women are working on the fields, children are playing together… The usual sight you would find anywhere in this continent, and it was kind of boring.

Not to say that he wanted something bad to happen, it's just that Victor didn't have anything else to do but watch. Well, that's why he got money, isn't it? To deal with every problem of his life.

But before he could buy something to entertain him, there was something he wanted to check over. Victor twisted the joystick of his wheelchair forward and wheeled through the streets made of soil.

The village is pretty small, so it didn't take that much time for Victor to find the rest of his group, more or less… The first people he had found were Luka watching over Penny playing tag with other kids around(?) her age.

Of course, even if Penny was more than 1 year old, she is a Monster, not to talk about her specific species. There is no way she can let anyone escape from her hands, seeing how she was easily getting behind the other kids. However, when it was her turn to run, she was easy to trick and easily reached for a dead end.

"'Sup." Victor saluted Luka as he wheeled closer to him. "How is it going?"

"Oh?" Luka turned around, noticing Victor approaching him. "Hello Victor, did you sleep enough?"

Victor simply shrugged. "I still feel kind of tired, but I can deal with it better than before. The nap really did a miracle to me, I even feel lighter than before."

"Glad to know that you are fine…" Luka replied as he looked back to Penny, just to see one of the kids that were running from her stumbling on a rock and falling down, before Penny also landed on him in a comical manner.

"Hmm, where are the others?" Victor asked with curiosity as he casually shifted his gaze between Luka and his store.

Luka sighed. "Well, Granberia went to practice with her sword, and Eva is accompanying her to keep an eye on her. As for Alice… She has left."

"...?" Victor blinked in surprise at the news about Alice, while pausing his research through the store to obtain some entertainment. "...What did you just say?"

"We were speaking about the bad relationship between you two, and soon Alice got angry and left the group. Penny had antagonized her when she started to talk bad of you, and Alice left after that."

"..."

Jesus-fucking-Christ, THAT was not supposed to happen, not at all. Damn, he messed up big time this time; now the plot is really slipping out of the box.

Looks like he will really have to fortify his future house, now that the two supposed main characters are separated. If they can't stay together, there is no way that they can win against the angelic army of Ilias by themselves.

But… Actually, does it even have anything to do with him? By the time Ilias would attack the world, he would already be within his own bunker drinking beer and eating pizza. It would basically be like 60 Seconds, the game, but with infinite resources…

"...What the fuck am I even thinking about?" Victor muttered under his tone while shaking his head.

Does it have anything to do with him? Of course it does! Alice probably left the group because of him. He is certainly a lazy man, but he is a lazy man that can wipe his own ass; it was his own existence that threw off the balance of the plot, so he might as well help with fixing it instead of not give a fuck.

Making a mess and not cleaning up? He isn't that much of an asshole, even if he has standards and responsibilities to follow.

"Luka, do you know where Alice has gone off to? I'm going to have a small chat with her and see if I can fix this mess." Victor asked as he sighed in exasperation.

Luka stared back at him and shook his head. "You don't have to do this, you didn't do anything wrong."

"I did more wrongs in my life than you can ever think, one of them includes not taking the opportunity to end my life with a gunshot some years ago. Just tell me where she has gone."

The purple-haired boy merely pointed in one direction at his right. "She walked to the woods in that direction, but I doubt that she is still there."

"I don't have anything else to do anyway. By the way, have you guys made up a plan for the kidnapping thing?"

Luka nodded. "Alice had suggested going to the village at twilight. The Harpies will sleep early, while the nocturnal ones are still sleeping. Eva will incapacitate Queen Harpy and I will seal her, before we can rescue the other men."

"Hmm, we'll continue that when I'm back." After being assured that everything was okay, Victor pushed the joystick of his wheelchair and moved in the direction that Luka had pointed to.

Victor wasn't actually doing this because it would make a mess out of the plot in the future. Actually, if he really worked hard, he alone could save the world if he wanted to. He could buy anything he wants, he can hide somewhere until he gathers enough Gold Coins to buy someone like Beerus to fix the job with a finger.

The only reason why he is doing this is because he feels bad about it. And of course, if you feel like you want to do something, why push that for another time when you can do it now? Won't your mind be clear if you solved the problems you had before?

Soon, he reached the woods and began to look around, mostly on the ground to check for any trail and see where his wheelchair was going.

"*Whistle* Hey, Alice? Are you there? I want to talk a bit." Victor tried to call out, despite knowing that she is most likely gone from the entire continent judging from her attitude.

As he received no answer in return, Victor brought out a skewer with tri-colored dangos from nowhere. It was actually an Ama-Ama Dango, something he didn't have the opportunity to eat back in the Sutherland Inn and the core reason why Alice was excited to come here, since the honey they were covered in came from here.

He took a whole dango in his mouth and chewed on it, tasting the incredibly sweet flavor it released all over his taste buds.

"...Holy shit, it might actually give me diabetes with one portion; how the hell did you even empty the hotel's rations?"

"..." A tall shadow was casted behind Victor without causing a sound. He immediately noticed the appearing shadow on the ground in front of him and stared at it for some seconds, before he extended the Ama-Ama Dango over his head.

After a couple of seconds, he pulled the skewer down and saw only a single dango out of the three that were previously together. Of course, one was eaten by him, while the second…

Victor lifted his head upwards and saw the tall figure of Alice behind his chair, staring down on him with a neutral expression and her purple monster face.

"I wasn't really expecting someone to go after me at first, but why you out of all people? What are you even doing here?"

"Well, I just wanted to talk."

"..." She stared down on him in silence, with her eyes narrowing. "Talk about what? If it is about me leaving the group, shouldn't it make you happier? You can go on doing what you want by yourself.

Instead of that, you decided to follow the trails of the 'person who forced you to suffer through pain'... Speaking of which…" As she trailed off, Alice's tail surrounded Victor's wheelchair in a full circle.

"Since you already know of my identity, I should start uprooting the bad weeds from the garden and make sure you won't spew about my identity to anyone." She said as her tail tightened around his wheelchair, making Victor frown.

"Can you please not? I just spent 6'000 Gold Coins for this wheelchair."

Upon hearing his words, it was Alice's turn to frown. "Do you think I'm joking? I'm going to squeeze you to death! Unlike other monsters, I won't even bother raping you and immediately pass on murder!"

"Girl, you literally ran away from the group because a fucking child told you off, your intimidatory factor collapsed to the ground. Also, both of us know that you can literally decapitate me by swinging your arm right over my head; and you want to utilize strangulation? You disappoint me."

"..." Alice gritted her teeth in anger before she tightened her hold on Victor's wheelchair with the intention of breaking it apart. However, she surprisingly tensed up as soon as she felt a slight bend on her tail's surface, and stopped tightening up.

Why can't she even break a mere wheelchair? Alice didn't know the answer to that question.

"W-Well, instead of staying there, you decided to come here alone and unguarded. Isn't that also quite a stupid gesture for you?"

Victor merely stared at her with an unimpressed expression, which unnerved her as she ordered back at him. "Stop looking at me like that! I could-"

"You can't do shit, just give the fuck up and let me talk." Victor interrupted with an exasperated tone as he shook his head. He took a deep breath and started to speak.

"Look, I know how you feel. This doesn't happen to just you, others also have felt the same, or will feel like that sooner or later. You go out, do something that should be the right thing to do, and then everyone accuses you of being the bad guy. I also played Among Us, don't sweat it."

Alice glared at Victor and crossed her arms in silence.

"However, there is actually no reason for you to be so angry. It's all my fault in the end, not yours. I acted like a spoiled child despite knowing you were doing the most logical thing, and since yesterday, we didn't do anything but piss off each other and fuel the hate between us instead of… What the hell am I even saying?" Victor suddenly snapped out from his 'philosopher' mood and blinked a couple of times.

He sighed and shook his head with a groan before extending the last Dango at Alice. "Look, how about you eat the last one and let's make peace? There is absolutely no need to pull out our fangs at each other just because something bad happens once in a week… Jesus. It wasn't so hard to say it; was it, Victor?" He muttered the last part to himself.

However, Alice seemingly didn't budge as she stared down on him. "You've been too late, Victor. There is no way I can accept your request, and there is no way I will return to your weird gang again…"

"There's honey dripping from your mouth." Victor pointed out with a blank expression and threw away the empty skewer.

Alice paused and quickly licked the corner of her lips, tasting the dripping honey before she caught on Victor's staring expression. She twisted her head away from him and muttered. "...Well, it would be childish for the Monster Lord to hold such a small grudge when the rest of the entire humanity is already antagonizing me as their common enemy. I'll give you a second chance."

"See? It wasn't that hard." Victor commented with a smile on his face. Although the food was part of it, the reason why Victor was so confident about solving this situation is because he knows Alice long enough to know that she can't hold weak grudges like this beyond one day. After all, he also can't do that. The reason why he acted like an asshole while he was preparing honeyed crunchy bread was because the situation presented itself and Victor didn't feel like letting it go, he wasn't really angry at Alice.

This was one of those cases where using his own yardstick to measure other people worked. Children simply forget about these stupid grudges, while adults look down on their past selves for keeping them up. Even Alice knows that it would be petty to hold such a weak grudge for this long, and she might be also looking for an opportunity to solve the issue.

Of course, that was just all Victor's assumption. He is not Alice, after all.

"Still hungry?" Victor asked as he made two more Ama-Ama Dango appear through the gap of his fingers. Alice casually picked up one while Victor ate the other.

They remained quiet and enjoyed the taste of the overwhelming but still balanced sugar in the Dangos.

"It's been less than one whole day, but I was already missing this taste." Alice commented with a calm expression. "By the way, even if the grudge is settled down, that doesn't mean that we are still friends."

"No problem. After I have reached the treasure cave and obtained its treasure, there won't be any actual reason for me to tag along with you people…" Victor replied as he relaxed on his wheelchair.

"..." Alice remained silent at his words as she casually twirled the skewer through her fingers. "...By the way, why do you even care about me? You could have just let me go and we would not see each other forever."

"I just didn't feel right…" Victor told her before he exhaled from his nostrils. "I am the reason why you left the party, right? It is because of the bad water between us. I didn't feel good knowing that my very presence causes problems, and I thought I should at least try to fix things between us at least."

"Hmm? You don't seem like the little dipshit I thought you were." Alice let a snarky comment at Victor's reasoning, making him glare at her from the corner of his eyes.

"Screw you."

"You want to?" A teasing smirk appeared on her face as she softly approached Victor from his side. "I'm sure that my Dangos will taste better if I add some of your… spice."

Victor sighed and pushed her shoulder away. "I'm not in the mood for that, I've already gone for it twice today. If you want semen, ask Luka. I'm sure he is going to need to shoot his load now before he does it on the Queen Harpy."

"Whatever…" Alice didn't push it further and continued to eat her Ama-Ama Dango. "...Anyway, where do you really come from?"

"...?" Victor glanced at her with a raised eyebrow.

"Don't look at me with that dumb look. You think everyone is going to believe that you came from an island outside the three continents? I knew from the start that you were lying, I was just going along with the lie because I wasn't feeling in the mood to ask further."

"...Was it so unbelievable?" With a defeated expression, Victor asked with curiosity.

"Do you think I live in some cheap shack? I've got a whole library filled with books you couldn't find anywhere else in Ilias Continent and Sentora, whether they are books filled with knowledge, magic, or merely forbidden books.

There is a whole map of the world, and the remaining islands left in the outer sea are places where civilization can't grow properly. Then, you come at me saying that you came from such a place, and you magically pull out stuff that not even the most clever minds in the world could make up. You can trick people who know less than that, but not me."

"...Yeah, that was dumb of me." Victor agreed with her assessment of his attempt at lying. "Well, I told a lie, yeah. Though, my origins are more unbelievable than that; and now it's not really a situation I'd like to use to tell you my secrets… If you want to know the truth, I'll tell you everything later, if you can still find me after we will go separate ways in Iliasport. It's just that now is not the moment."

"Alright." Alice shrugged before she finished her own potion of Ama-Ama Dangos and threw the stick away. "What are the others doing now?"

"Luka is watching over Penny playing with the other kids, while Eva and Granberia are alone training somewhere, I don't know…" Victor started to stretch over his wheelchair. "Ugh… I still feel tired…"

"You?" Alice raised an eyebrow at Victor's words. "Weren't you sleeping a few minutes ago? How are you still tired?"

"No idea…" Victor replied before he bought a cup of cappuccino and slowly sipped it. "Well, to be fair, I didn't sleep a lot in these last two days. The average perfect sleeping time for me would be around 12 or 13 hours… So, how about we return back?"

"Okay… Now that it comes to my mind, how did you even recognize me in the first place?" Before they could actually go, Alice asked another curious question. "Even when I was the Monster Lord, I never actually left my own castle, not to talk about Hellgondo. There is no way that you can see through me."

Victor snorted. "I had seen your mother, you look like she fucked her own clone and gave birth to you. The only difference between you two are sizes."

"???" The Monster Lord stared at Victor with a surprised expression. "You know my Mom?"

"I mean, I know her like anyone else would. At this point, your identity is not some kind of national secret, some people are bound to recognize you in future."

"Fair enough…" Upon ending their conversation, Victor and Alice started to return back to Happiness Village, now with a settled grudge.

…

Victor Luis' (future) Trivia Book: Sparrow Girl

Sparrow Girls are a weaker and smaller subspecies of harpies, much more childish-like than the Harpies in general. They are physically more fragile, but because they are so small and light, they also have excellent manoeuvrability, more so than the average Harpy.

She is a monster who announces the arrival of dawn with her singing and dancing, widely recognized to wake people from their slumber, no matter how heavy it is. She herself is also very meticulous and doesn't fall asleep accidentally.

Just as modest and quiet they are, even their 'rape' attempt consists on politely asking a human male to mate with them. However, there are known cases where they will directly assault the man if he ever disturbs them in their own territory.

Because they are the weakest of their kind, the other Harpies once looked down on them and worked them out like slaves. This fact was very notable during the reign of Refletsia, the flying war god. However, when the new reign of Lucretia, the current Queen Harpy, began, the Harpies took their sparrow counterpart with much more respect and sociability than before.

Of course, because they are based on Sparrows, their favorite food is rice, although there are moments when a Sparrow Girl would usually join a group of birds to eat from the hands of an elder throwing breadcrumbs on the ground… Be sure to capture that image in your mind, because you will never see that happening ever again in your life.

They also wake up around 6 AM, right at dawn to start singing. As for why they are chirping and singing, that's actually their own way to mark their territory. If you hear them in a forest, you can watch and listen, but don't disturb them if possible.

As another small trivia, there is a rumor that Sparrow Girls wake up early because they can observe their foes' weaknesses while they are sleeping.